People have recommended diatomaceous earth for earwigs. They love my chard too. I just bought some food grade DE, but haven't had time to put it down. It's supposed to take a couple of weeks to work though. Thank heavens I only got a half dozen of them in my kitchen, but also brought in a wasp. That really freaked me out.

My chard and collards have also wilted because I wasn't watering enough. This has been a tough summer for gardening.

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If you have had the extreme heat and very dry weather that many of us have experienced this summer, then that could easily explain why your soil has been drying so quickly and the plants are wilting. especially the large leaf plants like beets and chard. Be sure you are giving the area at least 1 inch of water each time you water. If you are watering only the plants, rather than the whole area, much of the water can leach away from the plants into the dryer soil. I would suggest that you apply at least 1 inch of water daily until the soil is damp the next day then cut back to every other day. As weather cools you can probably cut to less often on the watering.

The roots of the chard I pulled looked healthy. We had had some hail and I thought the holes in the leaves were due to that but I put the chard in water and the earwigs came in droves. I killed 28 of them in my kitchen. I'm afraid I freaked and threw the whole plant away---I tend to freak out with insects in that quantity. By the way, is the root of a chard edible?

Ok we have a really nice organic garden BUT! the chard is overrun by earwigs (ew) what can get rid of those? Also I have noticed that even when the day after I water, the ground is even damp, and my beets, chard, etc. are wilted? I'm sure there's something wrong that I can fix??

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